Introduction

This volume contains a collection of essays which attempt to analyse the modern metropolis. The metropolis is understood here as a ‘mater polis’, a ‘mother city’, a substantial conurbation, which exceeds the scale of the traditional city. As such it attracts its own problems. The metropolis constitutes a complex web of social interaction. It is difficult to navigate and difficult to understand. But so too the metropolis plays an important role in contemporary society. It features prominently in the public imagination as the very site of modernity. And within an age of global tourism, advertising and marketing, the great examples of the metropolis – London, New York, Paris, Berlin and so on – take on an international significance beyond their regional status. They have become world cities on a world stage, emblems of their nations, symbols of civilisation. To understand the metropolis is – to some extent – to understand our present age. In looking at a number of examples of the metropolis from a range of different perspectives, the essays in this volume therefore attempt to shed some light on our contemporary condition.